Hunting Regulations

Beginning with the 2016 – 17 hunting seasons, a new schedule will be used for setting annual migratory bird hunting regulations. The current early and late season regulatory actions will be combined into a single process that will establish migratory bird hunting seasons much earlier than the current system does.

Under the new process, proposed hunting season frameworks for a given year will be developed in the fall of the prior year. Those frameworks will be finalized a few months later, thereby enabling the state agencies to select and publish their season dates in early summer.

This new process will be implemented for the 2016-17 regulatory cycle. There will be a one-time overlap in the regulatory processes for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. The 2016–17 regulatory schedule will begin in mid-June 2015 with the first SRC meeting of the 2015.

Proposed season frameworks, a 30-day public comment period, and final season frameworks will then follow with ultimate publication of all 2016-17 migratory game bird hunting seasons in late May to mid-June of 2016.